"Banking" on an engineering degree.

When I was driving out of Chennai towards a temple town suburb ( early monday morning), there were huge traffic blockades. Most of the vehicles occupying the road were the buses transporting students to private engineering colleges.

The boom of the last decade and the massive recruitment by India's biggest body shoppers ( oops! people call them IT companies) had ensured a steady inflow of "customers" to these private engineering campuses.

A retired senior banker was travelling with me in the car.He had just returned after a week of interviewing for a PSU bank recruiting clerks.He told me that at least 60-70% of the candidates interviewed by him over the last week were engineering graduates.

While this was initially shocking for him, he got accustomed to the idea over the period of selection week.He narrated tales of candidates who couldn't clearly explain about their choice of engineering education. Many had gone through the degree for their parents sake and most of them had even borrowed heavily to enroll for the "coveted" engineering degree.The person also narrated tales of people working for IT companies who were willing to join the bank as clerks.

The salary paid for bank clerk's ( which is not huge by today's living standards) was a big draw for the candidates who had applied for the job.

The banker said that while he had nothing against engineers becoming clerks, he said that they could have been wiser with their educational choices instead of falling in line with the crowd.